Pastor Maldonado has secured the first Venezuelan F1 victory ever and the first Williams win since Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004. Home driver Fernando Alonso finished in second place after a race long battle while Kimi Raikkonen finished a close third.

As an aside... how the hell did Hamilton, the master of wearing out tyres, manage to make a set of hards last from lap 34 until the end?

No way that Ferrari can only be fifth after latest updates. Alonso easily kept both Lotus cars behind and even came close to winning the race.

My list would be:

1. Mclaren, because of their Q pace
2. Ferrari, Lotus
3. Sauber, Bull, Williams, Mercedes, Merc coud be even lower, their race performance is pathetic, only their Q is keeping them here
4. Out of pace drivers from top teams; Schumacher, Massa, Senna
5. Force India

Pre season testing showed lotus, williams and sauber toping the timsheets each day...
Pundits claimed that red bull had the fastest car - followed by Mclaren -- when they had times in the bottm half of the top 10...

--It now looks like perhaps they were not sandbagging as much as we (or They) thought!!

Sauber had a bad strategy, but appart from that they were almost always under the wing of another car, and popping purple sectors from time to time.
Perez did a stint in clear air(10second gap) at the back during the first part of the race (I think after his first "real" pitstop) where he was the fastest man on track.

Yeah but he changed to the better tyre didn't he? The harder compound? So he was meant to be quicker.

Quite amazing really how five different drivers from different teams have each won in the first five races... and including two first timer winners... in a season where there's six former world championship drivers competing... and the drivers in 3rd, 4th and 5th places haven't even won a race yet. For all that has, and is happening I am enjoying this young season more than any other in recent memory. I say enjoy the season people, we may not see another 2012 again.

I thought it looked like a tall order, but thought it was not impossible, given that as the track rubbers in and the fuel goes down the tyre degradation will also go down.

Oops. Close enough

But the point stands though - having to do 31 laps when your previous set did 20, and Pirellis don't seem to tend to really rubber in much anyways - you don't really see black lines in braking, cornering and traction zones.

Best chance ever in the history of F1 for any midfield team & driver to steal a win for their career resumé. The likes of Grosjean, Kobayashi, Di Resta, Hulkenberg, heck even the STR drivers, are all fancying their chances of getting their lottery tickets picked on race day for their first ever career win. Lots of money to be made from betting on those guys. Might also put some money on Schu continuing his binary pattern scoring (0,1,0,1,0...).

Fortunately the season is long, so Hamilton and Raikkonen still have a chance of lucking into a Gran Pirelli win before the season is over. As for the rest, force majeur might be necessary.